rsync like restore

[Mike Kallies <mike.kallies@gmail.com>]

Hello Everyone,

For testing, we'd like to do a weekly automated restore on our standby
hardware.  The ideal way to do this would be to do an rsync-like
restore.

This would:
  - do an integrity check on our backup server's contents,
  - bring the backup server's contents up to date,
  - transfer only the differences, minimizing bandwidth utilization
  - 'prime' the restore set for a fast emergency recovery.

Our current restore would take roughly 3 days if we saturate our
bandwidth.  It would be a slow recovery and cause serious business
downtime.

We *could* replicate from our primary to our secondary, but this would
not test the backups.

Replicating then restoring randomized sets, files, directories, then
comparing files with the originals (respecting normal modification
with expected date/times as a reason for changes) might be our best
option.  It could be complex to test effectively though.

An rsync-like restore could greatly simplify this kind of test.  Is
there such a feature?  Is there a different method which people use to
test their backups which I'm overlooking?

Thanks,

-Mike